CAESAR IN ABYSSINIA 227

only along the Mai Timchet route . . . and march with
the Fusil Gras always ready. . . .

Imru and Ayelu were, together, the most wary and
capable commanders of the Ethiopian war.

They got together, laid their plan, mobilised and marched
their men and made good their military objectives in
eleven days. They operated from bases over a hundred
miles apart by tedious mule-tracks : their men travelled
on bare feet. They had no aviation to do their patrolling
or reconnaissance for them. One of them, Ayelu, had first
of all to wind up another campaign; the fruitless guerrilla
on the Setit. The advance which they made was another
hundred miles. Yet Imru and Ayelu did it all in under a
fortnight.

On December 13 Ayelu was able to disengage his right,
well-armed as Abyssinians go, and to send it under a
Fitorari to the ford of Mai Timchet, where a small cc fort "
made of stones by the Eritrean Askaris guarded an easy
crossing, for the Takkaze was very low. Travelling at
night, the Wolkaits reached the ford at about four in the
morning of December 15, ran over the river and killed
off the enemy garrison, almost without a sound. They
pressed up the mountain trail to Edaga Sheikh where they
fell upon another post at daybreak. They numbered about
two thousand, the defenders about five hundred. Aero-
planes were called up at once by radio from the field at
Axum, but they could not be used. When they arrived
the fight was already hand to hand. The Ethiopian swords
were out.

Another column, also about two thousand strong, had
crossed another ford about nine miles down river. It met
with no resistance and came with terrific speed up a moun-
tain track parallel to that followed by the first and gradually
converging. These were Imru's troops. When they sud-
denly appeared behind the position of Edaga Sheikh, the
Italians and Askaris still fighting there had to withdraw
immediately up the Dembeguina Pass.

Both columns chased them almost at spear-distance up
the pass to the next post of Enda Selasi, five miles farther
and about thirty miles west-south-west of Axum, on the
main rib of the Shire range running towards the Takkaze.